Ghana’s Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) says months of intelligence work led to the interception of 1,070 Chanfang machines at Tema Port on March 3, with officials pointing to a coordinated criminal syndicate rather than isolated smuggling attempts.
A source at the EPA’s Tema office indicated the machines were allegedly destined for a sophisticated cartel suspected of contributing to the destruction of rivers and forest reserves across the country, and that the seizure was the result of months of surveillance and analysis of suspicious import patterns.
The EPA has banned the fabrication, importation, sale and use of Chanfang machines without a permit, citing sections 3(2)(b) and 35 of the Environmental Protection Act, 2025 (Act 1124), warning that any workshops or businesses found producing or selling the machines will be shut down and their equipment seized and dismantled.
The March 3 seizure is the second major Chanfang interception in under a month. A previous operation uncovered more than 200 of the banned machines concealed inside 14 containers at the same port. Combined, the two operations have removed more than 1,270 units of prohibited mining equipment from circulation within weeks.
The Chanfang busts are not occurring in isolation. The cluster of enforcement actions at Tema Port within the same period has also included the seizure of nearly 147 million tablets of high-dosage Tramadol hidden in a container declared as household appliances, and a GH¢85 million transit fraud case involving 18 articulated trucks, drawing renewed attention to smuggling networks operating through Ghana’s main seaport and to the vulnerability of port clearance systems to coordinated insider manipulation.
The EPA says it is simultaneously pursuing environmental restoration. The Authority recently deployed ionic nano-copper technology along sections of the heavily polluted River Birim in the Eastern Region at an estimated cost of $200,000 per kilometre, a pilot initiative authorities say is directly linked to damage caused by Chanfang-enabled illegal mining.
The EPA has pledged to station permanent officers at Ghana’s ports following the latest seizures.
